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ALBANY — A push to repeal a law shielding police officers from public scrutiny is gaining traction in the state capital.

A group of lawmakers and activists, including the mother of Sean Bell, rallied Tuesday for the full repeal of section 50-a of the state’s civil rights law, which prevents the release of disciplinary records of uniformed officers throughout the state.

A group of lawmakers and activists on Thursday called for the end of a law that blocks public scrutiny of NYPD misdeeds.

Democratic state legislators and city council members joined activists from Make the Road New York and Moms Rising at City Hall to rally for the repeal of the state’s 50-a law, which prevents the release of disciplinary records of uniformed officers throughout the state.

A group of New York legislators are hoping the political mood is right to pass a set of bills meant to increase police transparency and oversight. And they view a root cause of problems with police accountability, and therefore with public trust in law enforcement, as a section of New York Civil Rights Law called 50-a.

The 2019 Charter Revision Commission met on Thursday evening to discuss police accountability reforms before an impassioned crowd filled with activists. Local advocates along with some politicians have long called for increased transparency and accountability in policing, particularly in recent years following the 2014 death of Eric Garner at the hands of NYPD officers on Staten Island and the slow, somewhat secretive process by which any accountability has been handled for that incident and others like it over the years.

A coalition of 88 police reform groups are making a hard push to scrap a decades-old state law that keeps officer discipline records secret.

The groups — many of them working under the banner of Communities United for Police Reform — will send a letter Tuesday to the state legislature calling for a series of police reforms, including the repeal of 50-a — a 1976 statute that limits public access to police and firefighters' disciplinary records.

An obscure provision designed to protect personnel records makes it nearly impossible to hold the state’s cops accountable.

02/08/2019

Reason

In 2017, Constance Malcolm sat across from Kevin Richardson, the NYPD lawyer in charge of prosecuting police discipline cases. Richardson said he couldn't tell her the pending charges that were about to be presented in an open and public disciplinary trial against the police officer who killed her son.

The NYPD organized a citywide surveillance effort of Black Lives Matter protesters, according to nearly 700 emails obtained by an attorney.

01/17/2019

Metro New York

Nearly 700 NYPD emails show a large-scale effort to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters by undercover cops trained to take down organized crime, according to documents obtained by attorney M.J. Williams.

The emails also reveal that the department has held on their findings, including photographs of individual activists, nearly four years later, raising First Amendment concerns.